The Facts:

The Office of Advising Support, Information and Services announced it would be cutting three administrators and one advisor over the summer. OASIS is a supplemental advising system, which helps students when their regular advisors cannot.

Our Opinion:

While it is the responsibility of Provost Arden to oversee the changes done to the academic advising system, and ensure they are for the better, in this instance, with the cutting of positions from OASIS, his judgment falls short.

The advising system at N.C. State University has been a tppic of much debate among students, faculty and staff for its lack of personal interaction and effectiveness with individuals’ degree progress. OASIS provides a wealth of services to students from all colleges to enrich and ensure their advising experience. These services aid students in their majors, as well as prepare them for their potential careers.

According to John Ambrose, interim vice provost of the Division of Undergraduate Affairs, by cutting this program the University will save $357,000 a year, a hefty compromise on Arden’s part at the cost of our students’ academic success that will reflect on the next few weeks of the upcoming class registration.

This approach, the realignment of departmental resources, directly contradicts the Strategic Planning Committee’s guidelines to better our University, and the Student Success Task Force’s point on increasing the effectiveness of the advising system, as stated in their final product—white papers. Provost and co-chair of the Strategic Planning Committee Warwick Arden, is responsible for maintaining and improving student’s academic success, a responsibility that seems to be falling to the wayside with this current response to the budget cuts.

The major casualty in this academic advising battle is the elimination of pre-law program services for students interested in law school, a resource widely utilized by students in various major across the University. Instead of the complete elimination of these services, Arden should have reevaluated the decision and realized that the OASIS services could oversee the advising system, instead of his proposed council.

Arden’s plan to “develop a new structures for academic planning” is a step in the right direction for addressing the long-term effects of cutting the OASIS positions; however, the short-term effects will break the system beyond repair. This new structure, known as the Academic Planning Advisory Council, seems to be a misplaced realignment, since their points of interest coincided with those of the OASIS programs.  

The three administrators and one advisor who will be cut this summer from OASIS are not merely numbers printed on a page, but people whose jobs did make a difference. Next time, Warwick should realign his priorities for achieving ultimate student success. The advising system will soon be under fire as staff and possibly faculty are cut, leaving students standing alone in the ruins.